Lethal Weapon

Move over, Mel Gib­son – there’s a new De­tec­tive Martin Riggs (Clayne Craw­ford) tak­ing on the world of ac­tion cop com­edy Lethal Weapon (2016-cur­rent, based on Mel’s Lethal Weapon movies with Danny Glover be­tween 1987 and 1998). But it turns out 38-year-old Clayne al­most passed it, say­ing that “I told them [the pro­duc­ers] that they should leave the fran­chise alone. But as soon as I read the script, I was hooked”.

Alabama-born Clayne swapped 1

farm­lands for the big city when he moved to LA in 1997, but in­stead of act­ing, he did con­struc­tion work. “I just wanted to get out of Alabama and LA was the fur­thest place. I got out there, met a girl do­ing a play and a guy do­ing a play. He got flu and she talked me into re­plac­ing him. I fell in love with it then and there,” he says.

Hav­ing played foot­ball in school, 2

Clayne knows a thing about tak­ing bumps and knocks, not that his new TV bosses let him do all of his stunts. “I do 100% per­cent of the stunts. Ex­cept the car jumps. The pro­duc­ers told me that I couldn’t do those ones,” he adds.

He changed his first name from 3

Joseph to Clayne in 2001 and says that it’s a “re­ally strong and orig­i­nal” com­bi­na­tion of his home­town of Clay and a war­rior an­ces­tor named Clan.

life un­der lock and key, has been mar­ried to shoe de­signer Sun­shine Kiki Brown since 2004. They live on a farm in Birm­ing­ham, Alabama with teen daugh­ter Abby and sons Joey and Colt, who’re both un­der the age of 10.